


Fallen Star

by reconditarmonia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Villanelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-12-21 14:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21076154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia





	Fallen Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarsDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsDragon/gifts).

I was a falling star. A thing of fire,  
Whose roar could wake the restless dead from sleep,  
A reveille for those who still aspire

To glory, gain, war-bringer and war-crier  
Though long interred in frozen starlit deep,  
Or rusty soil that smothers hearts of fire.

Poetic justice! Fortune might conspire  
My mouth to stop, my metal carcass keep  
Entombed in earth I scorched, lest men aspire

To burn the land from orbit ever higher,  
And civil war for yearly harvest reap.  
What battle-visions dreams a thing of fire?

Slaughters and ruin, and nary a dream a liar,  
All memories, to rock the centuries' sleep,  
Where still I might to victory aspire.

Beneath this hill, where grows nor grass nor briar,  
To feed even the gauntest goat or sheep,  
There lies a fallen star, a thing of fire  
A standard, buried still, for those who aspire.

***

I stirred in slumber, feeling my bones shake  
And wondered if the hour had come now.  
My sister cannons jostled me awake!

Alas, it was the earth alone to quake  
And cool gray light into my tomb allow.  
Soon farmers came, amazed, the dirt to shake

From off my bones, and bring me up to break  
The ground behind an ox, a humble plough.  
Each day, ere yet the sun can rise, they wake

To scrape out a poor life, and each night take  
Their fireside rest. The oldest hardly know  
What came before; a reedy voice will shake

In legend-telling, or a child will make  
A rhyme of stars at war. Inside me, how  
Content and homelike feelings daily wake!

But storm clouds gather, farmers farms forsake,  
Forge swords and arrows, bloody conquest vow,  
The drums of war begin the land to shake  
And I, who slept so long -- at last I wake.


End file.
